View Essex Business Forum Members

Our membership represents the very best of local business. Our vetting process is thorough; each member must come highly recommended, and remain so by delivering continually outstanding work for members, their contacts, clients and friends.

View Essex Business Forum Members

Our membership represents the very best of local business. Our vetting process is thorough; each member must come highly recommended, and remain so by delivering continually outstanding work for members, their contacts, clients and friends.

Brentwoods Business Networking Blog – 10th November

A great turnout, 24 members and one visitor, sometime member and soon to be returning member, Kevin Radford aka the Bard of Hadleigh.

This coupled with Tina Walker re-applying to join means we are likely to increase our number to 29 almost immediately with others in prospect.

With this cheerful thought I report that David Plumley kick started things off with the second part on his Ed Slot on attendance. He was redolent with quotations. He titled the talk itself as “the fruits of poor attendance” something of an oxymoron. There followed some rare quotes for our EBF dictionary of quotations. For example, “we all know what we mean by being regular” and my favourite “short termism is always evident”….. this with particular reference to people giving bad excuses for absence. The first but by no means the last euphemism of the meeting.

With his inspiration ringing in our ears we hit the 60 second round with a theme of Mr Trump following his victory of the previous day. Largely merely passing reference was made.

We were pleased to welcome Marcelle Saad back from her sojourn in South Africa. Apparently diamond prices have gone up because of the low pound and the fact they buy diamonds in dollars.

Tears featured prominently in some of our members contributions. Michael Adelizzi, he of the House of Thrones, told of a lady whose bathroom he was fitting out who burst into tears of joy every time something new was added. He has at times performed as if he were a member of the School of Whimsy and in Nick Cooke’s absence he proved a worthy stand in. He did not however rise to the heights of the two whimsies present, namely Alan Shaw and Brian Painter.

Alan Shaw declared “every great tyrant has an architect” and Brian Painter told of a 28 year old lady whose phobia was BB. It transpired that this stood for Belly Button which she was afraid of looking at. All I can say is if she was able to look at her belly button she had a skill that most of us do not possess without the benefit of a mirror.

Jo Eastwood told of a beer tasting from the night before. She reeled off some unlikely names and said it all came from “Beavertown”. It sounds like somewhere in Alaska or a certain type of club rather than a brewery

Steve Roach, who was in attendance and still hung over, made positive reference to the stupendous goings on overnight. Nothing to do with Trump but the England cricket team’s performance of scoring 537 runs in their first innings in India. For those who suffer from insomnia, Test Match Special starts at 3.45am.

Talking of members working together, which we weren’t until the 60 second round, it was both interesting and encouraging to hear how Jill Willis, Matt Barry and Scott Griffiths had collaborated in dealing with a project for one client. It sounded like the ultimate referral.

If Michael Adelizzi and Brian Painter both had lady clients in tears, albeit for different reasons. Donna “Trumped” them all with a lady who for her 80th birthday was having new curtains fitted.

Reminiscences of her former husband had both of them in tears and Donna was subjected to the old lady’s match making with her son who, by Donna’s expression, was more than a rather grubby pimply youth.

An attempt to civilise the Naughty Table by the inclusion of Tina and Marcelle was unsuccessful because the main protagonists, Messrs Bullock, Caldon and Smallcombe were all present and huddled together as co-conspirators.

A very entertaining 60 second round. The highlight was Dean Caldon’s presentation telling of a lady whose house he was selling that had a faulty cesspit; the use of the word Trump becoming a euphemism for its contents. We were subjected to a virtuoso performance and Dean was the worthy winner.

We moved seamlessly to the 10 minute presentation. The first by Alan Heggie, it was very well presented and well timed. He showed us his wonderful car with photographs both inside and outside. He gave us details of his qualification which includes a security clearance that allows him to chauffer into both the House of Lords and to Windsor Castle. I think he said Windsor Castle. It could have been Windsor Great Park. I hope the monkeys didn’t pull off his wing mirrors. If they did however it would not have been a problem; the car comes complete with tissues if you get upset. A very good presentation which is deserving of a few referrals in the next week or so.

And so we came to the Referrals Round. Good numbers again. 24 referrals and over £21,000.00 worth of business recorded.

Jill Willis was positively revelatory about her taste in men, She declared how pleased she was , now that winter was here, to see men wearing Tweed Jackets. Now on the basis that part of the treatment process of said fabric is its immersion in urine I get the idea that she prefers the man who owes his body odour more to sweat and pipe smoke than “Armani pour homme”

It looks like it’s going to be a good month and if our numbers rise at the same time I look forward to many other entertaining meetings.

Thanks for the warm welcome in your cosy new home. Glad to see and hear the banter hasn’t changed which makes this group unique and well worth a visit. An enjoyable read Aidan and great to meet all the new people since I was last with you. It feels strange to be the New boy.

Essex Business Forum is an association of professional business people and owners of established and reputable SMEs based in Essex which represents every trade and profession, and with the addition of an extended network of businesses in highly specialist fields.

We run weekly business networking groups every Thursday morning in Brentwood, plus other regular events and networking meetings.

We're always looking for new members to join, so if you are interested then come along to one of our meetings.